The Unimagined Community: Imperialism and Culture in South Vietnam (Cultural History of Modern War)

The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Title Page, Copyright, Dedication 2 Contents 8 List of figures 9 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 12 Colonialism and national culture 34 Vietnamese anti-colonialism and the Personalist critique of capitalism and liberal democracy 62 The other Vietnamese revolution: The Strategic Hamlet Campaign and US imperialism 107 Psychological warfare, counterinsurgency and the society of spectacle in South Vietnam 164 Mass culture in the later Republic 186 Surveillance and spectacle in Bùi Anh Tuấn’s Z.28 novels 225 Image-making and US imperialism: Sovereignty, surveillance and spectacle in the Vietnam War 259 Conclusion 276 Index 284 Publisher:Manchester University Press,Published:2019,ISBN:9781526143976,Language:English,OCLC:1130059946 The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese “culture,” as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. "The unimagined community proposes a reexamination of the Vietnam War from a perspective that has been largely excluded from historical accounts of the conflict, that of the South Vietnamese. Challenging the conventional view that the war was a struggle between the Vietnamese people and US imperialism, the study presents a wide-ranging investigation of South Vietnamese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. Beginning with a genealogy of the concept of a Vietnamese "culture," as the latter emerged during the colonial period, the book concludes with a reflection on the rise of popular culture during the American intervention. Reexamining the war from the South Vietnamese perspective, The unimagined community pursues the provocative thesis that the conflict, in this early stage, was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two competing versions of anticolonial communism. -- Résumé de l'éditeur The unimagined community presents a wide-ranging study of South Vietnemese culture, from political philosophy and psychological warfare to popular culture and film. The book pursues the provocative claim that in its early phase the conflict was not an anti-communist crusade, but a struggle between two different forms of anticolonial communism. -- .